


Beau and the Beast

by Captain_Holland



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Adam's backstory, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Although Gaston won't wear a dress (spoiler), Angst, Awkwardness, Character Development, Character Study, Dance scene is still gonna happen, Enemies to Friends, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Gaston is still a dick, Gaston takes Belle's role, Gaston's backstory, Healing, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Making each other a better person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Redemption, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Story has a slower pace than the movie, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10507650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Holland/pseuds/Captain_Holland
Summary: Gaston, deeply offended and a little hurt by Belle's refusal of his marriage proposal, sets off on his own in search of some big game to shoot. Lost in his thoughts he arrives at a place where it is winter in June and trouble is quick to find him. A severely wounded Gaston soon finds himself locked up in an airy cell with a very reluctant and hostile host lurking in the shadows...Or: What happens when an arrogant, but traumatized ex-soldier clashes with a vain, cursed Prince who has forgotten what love feels like?[On Hiatus for the moment, because uni gets in the way. I hope I'll have more time in the summer to write! ]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, the prologue is almost completely copied from the new movie but the first chapter will soon follow! 'Beau' is btw the male form of the name 'Belle', although Gaston is not renamed or anything.  
> This will be a slow build - the story will not progress as fast as it does in the film and neither will the relationship between Gaston and Adam. But, it will be worth it in the end I think (and hope). I just saw the new film yesterday and I loved it. I imagined the actors of that film as the characters in this fic. So Luke Evans is Gaston, Dan Stevens is the Beast etc. 
> 
> Please enjoy, and comments/bookmarks/kuddos are always appreciated! <3

Once upon a time, in the hidden heart of France, a handsome young prince lived in a beautiful castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was selfish and unkind. He taxed the village to fill his castle with the most beautiful objects and his parties with the most beautiful people. 

Then one night, an unexpected intruder arrived to the castle, seeking shelter from the bitter storm. As a gift, she offered the prince a single rose. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the prince turned the woman away... But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances... For beauty is found within. When he dismissed her again, the old woman's outer appearance melted away to reveal a beautiful enchantress.

The prince begged for forgiveness, but it was too late. For she had seen that there was no love in his heart. As punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast and placed a powerful spell on the castle and all who lived there.

As day bled into years, the prince and his servants were forgotten by the world, for the enchantress had erased all memory of them from the minds of the people they loved.

But the rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose. If he could learn to love another and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell, the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time.

As the years passed, he felt into despair and lost all hope, for it was not only his horrid appearance that would make it very difficult for him to find love... 

But above all, who could ever learn to love a beast?


	2. The Beast

Gaston kicked his heels into the horse’s sides and the mare threw her head up in annoyance, but complied. The forest surrounded them in a reassuring embrace and when he breathed in deeply the smells of fresh pine needles and wet wood calmed him down in the way they always did. Still, he couldn’t help but still feel a quiet burn of anger deep in his stomach when he thought back upon the humiliation he faced today. Belle – the most beautiful girl in town – refusing _him_ , the most beautiful man in town! He wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t just happened to him. He could literally have any woman he wanted in the village except the one he actually desired. Unbelievable, unacceptable – he couldn’t think of any other big words at the moment, but if he could he would feel them.

The mare shook her head suddenly and bristled nervously. Gaston absentmindedly patted her neck, but she still skitted nervously on her legs. He shrugged. Women.

Where was he? Oh yes, his humiliation. Whatever had he done to deserve to be treated in such a manner? He was a true gentleman, handsome and smart. Well, perhaps not the latter, but Belle read enough for the two of them.

“Can you imagine, Frou Frou? That there actually exists a girl who could refuse me – _me_!”

Frou Frou snorted at him and shook her head again. 

“Precisely,” Gaston patted her again, and this time Frou Frou lunged forward and almost took off in a gallop had he not grabbed the reins tightly and held her back. The mare was shaking her head, trying to get him to lose his grip on her. Gaston could see the white of her eyes and the frantic look she had in them. He frowned at her, but then saw something that captured his attention completely.

Snow. In July. He hadn’t noticed that the trees had become darker and whiter the farther he went, but now it was all around him. His breath came out in white puffs and his ungloved hands felt cold and stiff. And now he was thinking about it – where were they? He did not recognize this part of the woods. He had been thinking so much about Belle and the unfairness of it all that he hadn’t realised he had gotten-

“I’m not _lost_ ,” Gaston scoffed out loud in the cool air. He shook his hand with a disbelieving grin and slid off Frou Frou’s back onto the snow. He wore pants that did not cover his legs completely and he shivered slightly. If he had known he would find winter in the middle of the summer he would’ve brought his bear skin coat with him. 

Gaston scratched his head with one hand and held the reins tightly with the other, as his mare still tried to get away for some reason. 

“Calm down, girl. You act as if you have never seen a bit of snow before. We went too far north, that’s all.”

He hated the uncertainty that slipped through in his voice. Gaston snorted and spat in the snow beside him. 

“Come on. Let’s see where this road takes us. Stop fretting, you’re with me.” 

Frou Frou didn’t seem to be very comforted by that though, but Gaston didn’t notice. He simply got in the saddle again and urged her forward. Thankfully she complied after a few hesitant seconds. Gaston hummed, pleased. His eyes darted through the forest as it became darker and darker even though the sun would not go down in a few hours. The quietness wrapped around him until he could only hear the sound of his mare stepping through the snow and his own harsh breathing. His humming had died down almost as soon as it had started and he didn’t dare break the all-consuming silence in case it would - Yes, in case it would what exactly? This was ridiculous. He was all alone as far as he could tell and he did not feel any danger despite the surrealness of it all. And yet… The silence, the anticipation of something coming out of the dark before you could even lift your gun to defend yourself… It reminded him of something. Something he had been trying to forget with all of his might, but now the memories slowly creeped out of the dark corner of his mind where he had locked them away. The quiet. The dark. The _fear_ … And above all, the utter helplessness and despair that had spread from one man to another until it had finally set its claws in Gaston and refused to let go. 

Then, Frou Frou suddenly reared up on her hind legs and Gaston fell off onto the ground before he could even blink, let alone react. His head hit the ground with a large smack, but luckily the snow prevented any real damage. Gnashing his teeth, Gaston jumped up to snatch the reins again but then his mare took off and disappeared into the dark. He slammed his fist against a tree and did not notice the pain. 

“Frou Frou! Come back! Damn you.”

His voice echoed through the woods, but no other sound came back to him. Gaston felt the cold hit him harshly at that moment as if he hadn’t felt it before, and he threw his arms around himself to keep warm. His breath now produced large puffs of white air and a cool breeze hit him in the face. He felt a headache slowly coming up and that was when he realised he was in trouble. Some deep, _real_ trouble. No horse, no coat, no sense of direction. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but he was lost and the feeling of dread creeping in was one he never wanted to feel again. And so he squared his shoulders and began walking along the path in hopes of finding his horse not too far off. 

-

\---

-

Gaston did not know for how long he was walking through that dark, cursed wood but the farther he got the better he began to feel. It got to a point that he did not feel his feet hurt anymore. In fact, he did not feel them at all, but he didn’t mind. On top of that, he began to feel warm again despite the harsh wind still tormenting him. It all would’ve been really nice if only he didn’t feel so tired. Maybe it was time to find shelter and rest. After all, he had to be walking for hours right now. Or did he only feel like that? All sense of time had left him and he could think no further than taking the next step. And another. And another. He could lie down. Just for a minute. He wouldn’t fall asleep anyway, he wasn’t that stupid. Just for a minute…

A strange noise reached his ears and he looked around sluggishly. Then he realised it was himself that had made that dreadful noise. He slowly reached a hand up before his eyes and had to blink a few times to focus on it. He couldn’t move his fingers anymore and fright settled in him when he saw it looked just like the hand of a corpse. He could know. He had seen his fair share of dead bodies. Most of them were faceless to him now, but some wore the faces of men he knew. Gaston lowered his hand again and he wanted to take another step forward when a large howl pierced through the woods and made him freeze where he stood. 

Slowly he looked up and saw a massive white wolf standing on a rock. He was looking right back at him. Gaston blinked a few times and realised that there were more besides this beast. His cold, blue lips started trembling before he could help himself and he slowly walked backwards. The wolves growled softly at him and followed him with large, yellow eyes gleaming up from the darkness. The leader slowly crawled from the rock towards him, and that is when Gaston snapped and ran away as fast as his stiff, cold limbs could. There was no time to grab his gun from his back and even if they were, he wouldn’t be able to aim properly in the state he was in. And he knew for certain that the wolves would’ve grabbed him before he could even fire his first shot. 

Adrenaline brought some life back into his limbs and with it came a sharp pain as his muscles finally woke up again. He gnashed his teeth together and could almost feel the hot breath of the wolves in his neck. It was a hopeless situation, but he felt a small spark of hope when he saw a large gate and an even larger castle doom up from the darkness. If he could just reach the castle in time he would be fine. 

When the teeth grabbed him in his legs and his arm, he knew that it was over. There was no escape from this, not even from him – Gaston. The strongest and bravest man in town would come to his end miserably and alone.  
His yells turned into piercing screams as he felt the wolves tore into his flesh with fervour and enthusiastic growls. Gaston managed to kick one square in the face but got repaid by a particularly harsh bite in his shoulder. Tears streamed down his face as the strength left him slowly but surely. One wolf had his jaws set deep into his arm and was thrashing his head, trying to rip it free. His clothes ripped and his dark blood was swallowed by the snow.

Soon the wolves would stop playing around with only bites and really rip off his flesh while he was still alive and breathing. He knew it and had seen it countless of times before from a safe distance, smiling as he watched them catch an old deer who did not even have a chance. 

He was the weak animal now. Not old or young, but weakened by the cold that he had allowed to consume him until it was too late. He had survived the battlefields from which almost no one came back only to die in a place like this in more pain than a merciful bullet to the head would’ve brought him. 

It became dark at the edges of his vision. The sound of the wolves was muted out and Gaston closed his eyes and lay there, curled up in a ball on the ground trying to embrace the darkness and leave the cursed world in which he had everything but the one thing he really wanted. He waited for the bite to the neck that would make the pain disappear forever, but it never came. Instead, the pressure on his back and legs went away and the smell of filthy dogs went with them. For a minute, he cursed them for leaving him behind to die a slow death until he heard an enormous growl that chilled him to the bones. It was like nothing he had ever heard before. No wolf could make such a sound. Not even a bear. 

Slowly he opened his eyes and saw through blurry eyes that he had almost reached the gate. Just one step further and he would’ve been _so_ close to the safety of the castle. 

He stretched out a hand covered in blood and touched the cold iron with his fingertips. Why he did that he didn’t know. Perhaps because it was the last chance he had to prove he wasn’t a complete failure, despite what Belle might think of him. 

Belle. He would never see her again. She wouldn’t mourn him. Would anyone, truly?

He closed his eyes and dropped his head back to the ground. There he lay, waiting until the beast he had heard would kill him. He slipped away in unconsciousness before he could think anything else.

-

\--- 

-

When Gaston awoke, he knew that there was something not quite right. 

First of all, the pain he felt was almost unbearable. Normally when he awoke he felt fresh and strong and would immediately jump out of bed to eat a few dozen eggs to start off the day properly. Now, he couldn’t even move his finger without white hot pain searing up his spine. 

Second of all, the bed he lay in was incredibly soft and comfortable. It almost felt as if he was floating – it was very different from his own simple bed. On top of that, he felt warm and secure under the warm soft blanket on top of him. It helped to sooth the pain somewhat, but by far not enough.

Gaston felt confused and disorientated, but all he wanted to slip back into the comfort of unconsciousness again where the pain would leave him for a while. However, that same pain and his curiosity made that impossible. And so he slowly blinked his eyes open and looked up at the ceiling of the four-poster bed he was lying in. He wanted to sit up, but that wasn’t even a possibility with the state he was in. A soft whimper like an animal’s escaped from his lips before he could stop it. He pressed his eyes shut again. That was when a voice close to his face suddenly spoke up.

“Look, mama! He’s awake.”

Gaston startled at that and immediately winced at the pain. He looked sideways sharply but didn’t see anyone there. He blinked a few times. Perhaps he was dead after all. And if not, he was clearly delusional. Where was he? How did he get there?

“Shh!” 

Gaston looked frantically around the room, trying to find the intruder and a weapon at the same time. Multiple voices were whispering around him, but he couldn’t lift his head enough to see the whole room properly. It looked as if he was in the castle he saw – the room was big and luxury decorated. There was a thick layer of dust on all the furniture though, as if there had not been someone in here for ages. He licked his dry, chapped lips and tried to say something, but only a raspy sound came out. 

“Are you thirsty? Here is some hot tea for you. Open up!”

“Chip! Wait- ”

A light weight jumped on his chest and suddenly a white cup appeared in his blurry vision. Gaston blinked a few times in confusion as it tipped forward towards him seemingly all on its own. But then it turned around and looked at him through a pair of eyes and it smiled.

“Hello there!”

Gaston blinked. And blinked again. Then he yelled and shot up in his bed despite the severe pain that caused his vision to blacken momentarily. The cup fell from his chest and a bit of the hot tea fell on his exposed, bandaged chest. His eyes widened in pain and panic and he would’ve gotten up if he weren’t held back by – by a coatrack. His breathing became harsher and irregular until he felt so lightheaded that he almost passed out. Blood slowly became visible through the bandages on his chest and on his arm but his gaze was completely focused at the intruders in his room – no, his cell. There were bars in the door and a massive opening in the wall through which the wind had come. A quick thought crossed his mind to jump through it, but then he realized it would be a too long fall down. One he wouldn’t have even survived had he been his normal, strong self.

The coatrack wrestled him down firmly but gently and Gaston went limp, feeling powerless. He felt his sanity slipping away from him as he watched on as it tucked him in bed again. The teacup was hiding behind a teapot that glared at him with a stern look on her porcelain. 

“Black magic…” he whispered eventually with a rough voice. He stared up at the ceiling and tried to forget the enchanted beings next to his bed. He shook his head slowly. “I’ve become mad. This isn’t real. I’m still out there, in the snow, bleeding out. This isn’t… No.”

“Mama, why is he acting so weird?” 

It was the child’s voice again, the one that came from the teacup. It tried to whisper but Gaston could hear very word as if he was next to his head again. Gaston shuddered and was about to close his eyes to shut everything out when the sound of a door slamming came from somewhere far above him. His eyes widened in fear.

“Oh no… The Master- He knows. Lumière-!”

“Non, non! Not my fault! Cogsworth here was supposed to stand watch! Sacrè bleu-”

Heavy, thudding footsteps came closer and closer as the thing went down to stairs to the floor he was on. Gaston held his breath, foolishly thinking that perhaps it would just move on – but then the footsteps halted in front of the door and Gaston let his breath escape while he tried to still his shaking hands. Everything hurt and ached and the fear he felt was almost the same as what he had felt when he fought his first battle. Numbing, all-consuming. No escape from it possible until the danger was eliminated. But here, wounded and without his gun, there was not a single thing he could do to defend himself. The helplessness was almost worse than the fear.

The door was thrown open with a bang and a huge shadow fell into the room. Gaston stared at it and couldn’t look away. It had horns… And those claws-

“What is the meaning of this?” A very deep voice boomed through the room and a growl followed it immediately afterwards. Gaston recognized it as the growl from before – the one that had chased the wolves away and involuntarily saved his life. He tried to hide underneath his blanket, but the beast obviously knew he was there.

“Master- It is not what it looks like, I promise. You see, it was all Monsieur Cogsworth’s idea-”

“What! You insufferable fool! Master, it was him who wanted to bring the fellow in, I swear-”

“SILENCE!” Growled the beast so hard that the teacup shook on its saucer. After that it was silent again. The beast prowled forward and paced in front of Gaston’s bed growling under his breath. Gaston’s eyes did not leave him and slowly but surely he felt his courage come back again. How dared this filthy beast treat him like this. Did he ask to be here in this castle full of witchcraft? No! 

Gaston cringed and averted his eyes when the beast suddenly turned to look at him. All Gaston could see before he turned away were a pair of blue eyes shining angrily in the dark. 

“Who are you? Have you come to gaze upon the scary Beast? Did your friends dare you to find me and mock me?” The Beast spat the words out at him and suddenly appeared next to his bed to look down upon him. Gaston bit so hard on his lip that he drew blood, but all he could do was shake his head so fervently that he almost got whiplash. 

“NO? Then what are you doing here? Leave! Leave, and never come back again.”

“Master, please, he is hurt! Don’t you see that? He cannot go out there in the cold- he will die!” It was the teapot that spoke now. It was a woman’s voice, soothing but steady. She clearly wasn’t afraid of the Beast, even though she was made out of porcelain and could be broken easily. 

The Beast growled and turned around with a swirl of his cape. He walked around the bed until he was at the other side, where the enchanted beings were. It was dark in the room. There was only a light next to his bed – three lights in fact, and he wasn’t surprised anymore that it could move around on its own. In a flash of adrenaline and stupidity, Gaston snatched up the candelabra next to him and ignored the fact that it squirmed and protested in his hand.

“Who are you? Step into the light, Beast!” Gaston’s voice didn’t shake. At least, that was what he told himself. He was determined though to see what that thing looked like. What is actually was. Now, it was like a demon to him, but once he saw that it was just a being of flesh and blood it meant he could kill it. If only he had his gun with him…

The Beast snorted at him, which made Gaston turn a little red with indignation and embarrassment. Still, he refused to set the candalabra down even though his arm shook with exhaustion. It was the one that somehow didn’t got hurt by the wolves and he made good use of it. He wasn’t completely helpless after all, and that calmed him down significantly. 

Slowly, a paw appeared in the pool of light. Then the other. Gaston raised his eyebrows and slowly looked up until his eyes locked onto the blue eyes again – the eyes hidden in a head full of fur and with horns on top of it. The beast’s lip curled up in a sneer and Gaston saw the massive fangs. His hand went limp and the candalabra fell to the ground with a yelp. 

The Beast got hidden in the darkness again and Gaston sunk away as far as he could in the mattress. All the energy had left him and all he could do was await his fate. 

“Master…” 

“WHAT?” snarled the Beast to the candalabra, who cringed slightly. 

“Er… Ahum. Could I, perhaps, make a slight suggestion? We could just keep him here until he is well enough to leave. He will not bother you or anything. Will you?” The candalabra turned suddenly to Gaston. 

Gaston licked his lips a few times and tried to say something, but before he could the candalabra went on.

“No! You see? Master, this is your chance to do something good for once! Er- I mean, not that you’ve never done anything good before, of course- Although…-” 

“What Lumière is trying to say, Master, is that the good man over here will be gone before you even know it. Truly,” interrupted the clock, with an old man’s voice. It hid half behind the teacup and cowered when the Beast turned to glare at him now. 

An uncomfortable silence hung in the room for a few minutes. Gaston gripped the mattress in his hands and braced himself in case the Beast would attack him and eat him there and then. But the attack never came. Instead, the Beast glanced at him as if he had forgotten he was there in the first place. 

Before Gaston knew what was happening, the Beast grabbed his mattress and pulled it from the bed. Gaston yelped and grabbed onto the mattress as if his life depended on it. 

“You want to stay? Fine. You can either stay down in my cell or you can rot and die out there!”

Gaston screamed in a mixture of pain, fear and now also anger as he got pulled with mattress and all out of the door. He looked back into the room, trying to find help from the enchanted beings but they only looked on in shock and guilt. Gaston was dragged down the hallways and several stairs until he was shoved in an airy, cold cell. There the Beast left him on his mattress and the one blanket Gaston managed to snatch with him. Now there was definitely blood coming out of his bandages. When the door shut behind him with a final slam and the sound of a heavy lock turning echoed through the room, Gaston finally passed out from the shock and got pulled from one nightmare into the other.


	3. The Coward

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your nice comments! <3 They really motivate me to keep going. Please enjoy the next chapter!

Every time Gaston closed his eyes he saw the war. The few times he managed to wake from the depths of fever and exhaustion, he saw the cold stone ceiling of the cell he was left to rot away in.  
Whispers sometimes got through to him through the haze of illness and sedation – those he once knew from a very long time ago and new voices that both comforted and agitated him. The fever burned him from within, but on the surface he felt cold and he couldn’t stop shivering even with multiple blankets surrounding him.

 

Memories, nightmares and reality all blurred together in a confusing mess. One time Gaston thought he woke and saw Jean, the always grinning fellow soldier he knew from the war. Then he remembered that the man had died with the smile still on his face, even when a bullet struck him right in the heart.  
Another time he opened his eyes and saw something silver glittering in candlelight, but a tasteless sedative in his drink brought him back in the arms of sleep before he could think too much about it. He slipped away in a dreamless sleep that felt to him as only a few seconds, but was in reality several days. When he finally awoke for longer than a few seconds, it was light in the room. Despite the throbbing pain he felt everywhere on his body he felt more rested than he had been in a very long time. The fever he had was gone, but Gaston did not know that he would’ve surely died had he not been in his perfect physical shape.

 

His consciousness did not chase away the thoughts. If possible, they even grew stronger the longer he became aware of his surroundings.  
There was a huge gap in the wall next to him. It was a clever way of turning prisoners mad with freedom so nearby – only in the shape of death, and not life. 

 

And it worked. The more Gaston looked at it the more he felt the urge to just risk the jump to the stairs he could glimpse in the distance. However, his body felt like it could snap in two if he even moved a finger. When that horrid Beast dragged him through the castle all of his carefully wrapped wounds had begun to bleed again until he was sure no man could lose so much and still live to tell the tale.  
Gaston did not want to die in a place like this, was the thing. All alone and being the captive of a monster.  
But he had no gun, no strength… no courage. It took him a while to accept the latter.

 

Looking down at his broken body, he saw that they had stripped his cold, tattered clothes off him. It didn’t really matter much for his dignity though, given that almost every inch of him was covered in clean, rough bandages. He oddly felt like a picture he had seen once in one of the few moments of his life he had opened a book – a mummified corpse. A corpse that was in fact very thirsty.

 

Gaston’s eyes searched the cell and spotted a glass of water. Carefully, he stretched out a hand to grasp it. And that was how he found out – very sudden and very unpleasantly.

 

His left hand would never be able to pick up the glass. It would never do such a thing ever again.  
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Gaston lifted his hand up to his vision and after blinking a few times he finally accepted that what he saw was the truth. His left thumb was gone, leaving behind a big, jarring gap on the side that made his hand look like an abomination straight out of hell. But that was not all; when he wrenched his other hand free from the pool of blankets, ignoring the white-hot flashes of pain, he saw that that one was missing a finger as well. A strip of white bandage covered the empty space between his middle finger and pinky, neatly and expertly placed. It didn’t even hurt.

 

A choked noise escaped from his dry throat that startled him with the suddenness of it and hot tears burned in his eyes. He let his hands drop back to his sides and stared up at the ceiling, not seeing anything at all. Despair overtook him, and in his disorientated state he made a decision. 

 

\--  
\---  
\--

 

Mrs Potts came into the cell a few hours later with a few other servants and was met with an empty mattress. One look through the small room was enough though to find Gaston a few metres further lying on the cold floor with only one blanket to cover his shivering naked body. 

 

When they carefully tucked him back into a warm cocoon they all pretended they didn’t see the wetness on Gaston’s cheeks which he was trying to hide under his arm. They also pretended to not know he had been lying dangerously close to the big gap in the cell and the implications of that. 

 

But they did not forget it.

 

\--  
\---  
\--

 

“So I have guards now?” Gaston mumbled from under his blanket. He stared at the candlestick that apparently was called Lumiere. No joke. 

 

“ _Des gardes? Non,_ I am simply here to serve you in case you were in need of something, dear Monsieur. That is all.” Lumiere bowed so deeply that his nose brushed the floor, but Gaston could still glimpse the look he had on his strange little face. They sat there in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments when Gaston broke the silence with a voice he had to work at to stay steady.

 

“I was boiling hot under all those blankets. The floor was cold. That’s all.”

 

Lumiere nodded carefully at him to indulge him, but they both knew better. Gaston hated that. He wanted to forget the desperation he had felt as quickly as possible. To think he had almost succeeded in acting on his moment of weakness sickened him to the bones. And yet… 

 

A pressure on his hand made him jump, and when he glanced sideways he saw that Lumiere was carefully holding his bandaged hand. 

 

“We had to do it, Monsieur. Frostbite had settled in all of your fingers and toes, but we saved most of them. And your injuries, they will all heal in time. It could’ve been much worse, truly.”

 

Gaston jerked his arm away in such a harsh manner that he cringed at the shot of pain that shot up his spine. He clenched his teeth to keep any sounds from coming out. He had been pathetic enough already.

 

“Bugger off, cursed thing. I don’t need your services and I _definitely_ do not want your pity,” he spat venomously and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at the bewitched thing anymore. Thankfully he heard a soft sigh and shuffling sounds moving away from him until it was silent in the room again. Gaston carefully opened one eye to scan the room. When he saw he was truly alone, he finally allowed himself to let the tears escape that had been building up. He had been retorted to a blabbering fool that cried like a little girl at the littlest things. A hysteric idiot, no better than those girls in the village that couldn’t stop throwing themselves at him wherever he walked. Now he would never have to worry about that anymore, at least. 

 

The gap in the wall, pouring greyish daylight into the cell, almost seemed to be mocking him.

 

\--  
\---  
\--

 

Gaston awoke to a different sight than usual. Instead of the cold grey ceiling he had come to dread, he saw the top of the four-poster bed he had lain in when he first got here. His body was as comfortable as could be and the cold air was blocked from the room by a glass window. He frowned to himself. Had the cell been nothing more than a hallucination? 

 

Someone cleared his throat next to him, and when he looked he saw Lumiere, trying to look inconspicuous amongst the lifeless candles on the wall. Gaston frowned at him, but eventually his curiosity won.

 

“Why am I back here?”

 

“Hmm? Oh, you are awake! I did not notice.” Lumiere’s feigned surprise was so thickly layered on that even Gaston couldn’t miss it. The candelabra climbed down from the alcove in the wall and shuffled over to the bed. He was twisting and twirling the candles that were supposed to be his hands, and he lit them and blew them out several times before he talked again.

 

“The Master… He decided that you would thrive better in here than – er – down there.” 

 

Gaston squinted his eyes at him and was pleased when Lumiere cringed under his stare. “What? You’re saying he put me back out of the goodness of his black, ugly heart?”

 

“ _Non_ \- I mean, well, yes.” Lumiere pressed his candles against each other in thought, and when he brought them apart they were lit again. “You really shouldn’t blame the Master. Well, perhaps a _little_ , but you just caught him on a – er – bad day. That is all.”

 

Perhaps his hearing got damaged in the attack as well, because Gaston could not believe what he was hearing. However, the way Lumiere was avoiding his eyes and was so nervous told Gaston that he was, in fact, _very_ serious about what he had just said. Gaston tried to think about it, but honestly, that had never been his strongest point. His lips were moving but nothing came out at first. The familiar feeling of rage was boiling up inside of him. There were two ways this could go – either he would shoot something to release the pressure, which was impossible now; or he would just target the nearest poor soul who happened to be in his way. For a candelabra with a terribly strong accent he made no exception.

 

His hand shot out from under his blanket and gripped the cool metal of Lumiere’s waist. The latter gulped out of surprise but did not fight him to Gaston’s surprise as he pulled the candelabra’s face to his own. 

 

“A bad day? A. Bad. _Day_?” breathed Gaston through his teeth. His eyes were bulging out and his arm shook under the weight of Lumiere. His hand throbbed against the bandages and he tried not to think about its disfigurement. 

 

“But of course, how insensitive of me. I should’ve known about the Beast’s mood the day I decided to get mauled by wolves. Of course, it is so clear now! As if a light has been lit in my head!” He accentuated the last bit by shaking Lumiere, which made the flames on his candles flicker dangerously. 

 

“I should’ve known what was going to happen. Oh! And you bet I am grateful that the Beast has been so good to place me back again! In fact…” Gaston trailed of for a moment and saw how Lumiere trembled in his hand. He leaned forward until his nose was touching the one of the bewitched thing. “I would like to thank the Beast myself,” he whispered. Gaston didn’t blink, and to his smug satisfaction saw that Lumiere didn’t dare either. “Bring me the Beast, Lumiere.” 

 

He threw Lumiere away from him without ceremony and ignored how the candelabra scratched loudly at the floor in his haste to get away as fast as possible. Gaston lay back in his bed, smiling to himself. Yet, there was a colour to his cheeks. And as much as he liked to pretend it was a flush of anger, he knew better.

 

\--  
\---  
\--

 

Just like before, Gaston heard the Beast before he saw him. This time though he didn’t stampede through the hallway like a charging animal, but walked evenly along the corridor – almost like a human. Gaston did not know which of the two chilled him more. 

 

As the heavy footsteps halted in front of his door, Gaston held his breath and released his blankets from the iron grip he had had on them. He actually jumped when he heard the three knocks on his door before it was followed by the entrance of the Beast himself, not waiting for a reply.

 

Immediately their eyes locked and Gaston had to try his hardest not to look away. It was not an easy task. The Beast frowned at him suddenly, and Gaston realised he had been staring without blinking for a good full minute. He quickly blinked to get the sting out of his eyes and when he looked up again the Beast had moved across the room.

 

There he sat, as casually as could ever be. The Beast, sitting at the window in the full daylight. No shadows hid his monstrous features this time and his blue, scarily _human_ eyes were looking right back at him. Gaston opened his mouth, but quite uncharacteristically of him nothing came out. He liked to attribute that to his dry throat, but he knew the truth. And so did the Beast, clearly, who tilted his head at him and raised his eyebrow in mock interest. 

 

A bird chirped near the open window. It seemed out of place and strange, but was at the same time so normal that Gaston grasped at it like it was a lifeline. The world still existed out there, even though it didn’t feel that way. 

 

The Beast raised a bushy eyebrow and looked down at him. The silence stretched between them and Gaston held his breath, not daring to break it. At last, it was The Beast who broke it, voice dripping with contempt. 

 

“You summoned me?” 

 

Gaston bristled at him, snapping out of the stupor he was in. “You got that right, Beast. I demand answers.” 

 

The Beast growled at him and a flicker of anger flashed in his eyes. “I did not bring you into my castle. I did not _ask_ you to come here at all, disturbing my peace and trespassing on my lands as you did.” 

 

“Don’t dare act as if this is my own fault!” Gaston had to spat the words out, caught in a sudden coughing fit that had him wheezing after each breath. “I did not want to get lost in your bloody woods and get attacked by _your_ wolves.” The tendons in his neck were straining against the skin and he gnashed his teeth so hardly that he could feel a bit break off. He had no choice – he was shaking so badly that his teeth might otherwise clapper like a coward. God, how he would love to plant an axe on that thick neck and bring the Beast’s head with him to hang back home in the tavern. But that was the thing though, wasn’t it? Gaston didn’t have an axe. In fact, he had absolutely nothing that could serve him as a weapon. Oh, if only he could aim his gun at the Beast right now and point right at the space between his eyes… He would give a lot to see fear in _his_ eyes for a change.

 

The Beast looked at him coldly, scrunching up his nose at a particular bad cough from Gaston who was slowly turning red. “They’re not my wolves. And you were a fool to dwell through the snow on foot. Fools, believe it or not, tend not to live long. You should be grateful my servants found you and took pity on you when they did.”

 

It was unfair. So _bloody_ unfair. 

 

“I didn’t ask your bloody servants to drag me inside and cripple me! They should’ve just let me die a man.” Gaston’s voice broke laughably at the end and he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. But no tears came to the surface, thankfully. A flush of shame and illness was upon his cheeks and he could not do anything else but turn his head away from the Beast and drown in his own admitted weakness. “They should’ve let me die,” Gaston whispered so quietly he wasn’t sure whether the Beast had heard it or not. 

 

A painful silence stretched between them and Gaston fidgeted with the awkwardness of it. Had he had his gun with him he wasn’t sure whether he would point it at the Beast or his own despicable head. 

 

“My servants,” The Beast at last said in a chillingly calm voice, “gave you a gift. They are under strict orders to never leave the castle but they did anyway. For you. They’ve looked after you for almost two weeks now, treating your wounds, bringing you food and wiping the shit off your arse. They’ve shown you nothing but kindness despite what I told them. They made me keep you here despite what I told them. They made me move you back here, in this room, as if you were a _fucking_ prince despite what I told them. And now you dare to make slight of them.” The Beast stood up from his place at the window and straightened to his full, terrifying height. His eyes held Gaston’s in a tight lock from which the latter could not break away. 

 

Gaston was tired, ill and so exhaustingly angry at both the Beast and himself that he wanted to crawl out of his skin. But nothing shook him more than to be chastised when he knew he derserved every last bit of it.

 

“Get out,” Gaston choked out, when he finally found his voice again. “ _Get out!_ His eyes went frantically though the room like a madman’s, trying to find something - _anything_ that he could use. His gaze finally settled on a bowl with porridge in it beside his bed, but the Beast already realised what Gaston was about to do before he himself even did. 

 

In a flash, the Beast dove at him and Gaston cried out. But instead of feeling claws or teeth sinking into his flesh, the Beast grabbed the bowl of food next to him and flung it away across the room, bits food and shards flying everywhere with a crash. The Beast had flaming eyes that threatened to absorb him and his growling form bent dangerously close over Gaston, who tried to sink as far away in his mattress as was physically possible. 

 

“I’ll tell you what I think of you, _Man_ ,” growled the Beast, without breaking his gaze. “You are not only a fool, but also a coward. You can stay up here like the little _prince_ you are until your legs are strong enough to run from here with your tail between your legs. But,” The Beast continued even closer to Gaston with their noses almost brushing, “if you touch my servants ever again I will not hesitate to throw you right out of that window. Unless you would like me to do that right now, seeing your apparent death wish.” 

 

Gaston wanted to tell him no immediately, but was too paralyzed to do something even as light as shaking his head. Yet, the Beast seemed to be satisfied with his lack of response. Warm breath hit his face in a sudden outpour and Gaston could do nothing but stare numbly at the Beast’s bared fangs, glistering sharply in the light. 

 

“That is what I thought.” The Beast slowly backed away and Gaston, turned beet red by holding in his breath, broke into a painful cough that bloodied his throat and almost tore some of the stitches on his stomach if he felt it correctly. The Beast ignored him and strode to the door on his high paws. There he stood still for a moment, and Gaston was sure the other had changed his mind and was going to kill him after all. 

 

“Do not discard your life as if it is nothing. Some have it far worse than you.” The Beast looked at him then with a strange expression on his face. Before Gaston could do more than gasp for air like an idiot the other had already moved to the hallway. However, instead of slamming the door behind him like their last encounter he closed it so carefully that Gaston could barely hear the click of the lock turning. 

 

Gaston waited until he couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. Then he bit his lip to try to force the hysteric fear in him away. Gaston swallowed, trying to swallow the lump that had formed beside the soreness of his throat. It was no use. The tears already came – these days increasingly easily. The last time he had allowed himself to be like this was when he just came back from the war, shell-shocked and with a brand new perspective on the world.  
The memories of the war he could at least lock up far away in his mind, to only be opened and relived again when he was asleep and couldn’t keep them back anymore. It was in his dreams when he saw the past all over again. All the things he had done to survive. To come back.

 

But this. _This._ This wasn’t like anything he’d ever been through. This was nothing he could ever imagine happening to him. The tales of black magic and monsters from his youth had been true and its proof was everywhere he looked. It couldn’t be ignored or repressed. His wounds, the Beast, the feel of the soft blankets against his remaining finger tips – they were all almost startlingly real. And unlike the memories of war, he could not escape by simply opening his eyes and waking up.

 

Gaston was slowly turning mad the further his physical state deteriorated. The two were tightly linked, as one could not thrive without the other. He did not need to look at his body to know that he had lost weight dramatically. His muscles, the one he had trained so much in the past decades to become the strongest man in the village – they were as good as gone now, drained by his illness and wounds. There was no way he could lift even a back of flour now, let alone a full-grown girl like he used to be able to. And it wasn’t only that - he was maimed for life. No woman would even glance at him twice now with his hideous hands. Let alone Belle. 

 

Gaston looked at the ceiling for a moment and then turned towards the window. He could not see anything else than the sky from so up high, but he looked anyway. To look at something as normal as the sky comforted him somewhat. The world still existed outside of this horror castle. It existed as it had always done, with the only change that he wasn’t in it anymore. Was he even missed by anyone other than LeFou, or would they all just forget him and move on with their lives?

 

LeFou. He would come for him. Gaston was certain of it. The man always tagged on behind him like a little lapdog. If only had Gaston brought him along on this hunting trip. LeFou would’ve bailed for sure at the mere sight of the wolves, but at least he would’ve gotten help. Right? But it was no use. Not now at least. The longest Gaston had been away on his own was… what? Ten days? He couldn’t count very well, but it must be something like that. A similar time must’ve passed now. Soon, they would come for him bearing weapons and they would break him out. Then the Beast could be slain and everything would go back to normal again. 

 

Gaston sighed shakily and lifted his hands so he could see them. _Almost_ normal.

 

Looking away, he reached a hand towards the cup of water beside his bed, not broken by the fury of the Beast. He poked it cautiously with a finger, but it did not seem to be alive. Picking it up gingerly with his clumsy right hand, he ignored how much his arm shook with the effort of it and took a few sips. It was very sweet tea and it was cold, but he drank as if it was a life elixir. 

 

After that he did the only thing he could do these days - sleep.

 

 

Thankfully, the following days he did not see the Beast anymore. Lumiere had been painfully absent too for a while, until he suddenly appeared two days after Gaston had lashed out at him. The candelabra acted as if nothing had happened between them, which made Gaston feel only more and more guilty as he kept his own cowardly mouth shut as well. He snorted in himself, bile rising in his throat at the irony. 

 

Perhaps the Beast was right about him after all.


	4. The Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, thank you so much for the comments! <3 They brighten my day, they really do! Please enjoy ~

“If I fall on my face and you tell anyone, I will break you in two,” Gaston hissed at the coatrack, who simply shrugged in response and held out its wooden arms to catch him should he even do as much as stumble.

 

Gaston took a deep breath and slowly rose to his feet. It hurt – a lot. His feet had mostly been protected from the wolves’ teeth by his boots, but because of the frostbite they were still carefully kept warm in a special cloth. Wriggling his toes, he was satisfied to feel that they were all still present as far as he could tell. Still, he would’ve rather missed a few toes than his fingers. Nobody ever saw his feet, after all. Unfortunately though, he thought with gritted teeth, nothing really went the way he wanted it to anymore.

 

After a few tense seconds he stood upright, shaking like the world’s ugliest grandfather. Gaston squinted his eyes at Monsieur Manteau, whose wooden shoulders were shaking as if he was laughing. Laughing at _him_.  
Gaston swatted at him and immediately regretted it as he clutched his hand in pain. This only caused the damned coatrack to shake even harder and a flush appeared on Gaston’s cheeks. If it wasn’t pity he was getting from these beings, it was disrespect. 

 

He wanted to grab at the coatrack and give him a good shake or two, but as he took a step forward he dangerously swayed on his feet and it became black in front of his eyes for a second. When he could see the room again after just a few seconds, he saw the same ceiling where he had been staring at for hours upon hours.

 

With a groan, Gaston rubbed at his temples trying to make the headache go awake. _Too much, too soon_ after all. But this was only the first time he tried. If he just practised more – trained his muscles to make them strong again. Strong enough at least to carry his own body weight. 

 

The fact that Gaston still wasn’t able to move freely again jarred him like a nasty thorn that he couldn’t get out. But despite the setback he at least had a purpose again. The harder he worked, the sooner he would be able to leave this horror castle behind for good. And on his way he might find his gun and decide to give the Beast one more visit to say goodbye…

 

A spark appeared in Gaston’s eyes at the thought and he smiled – even when he tried again to stand up and almost _did_ fall flat on his face if Monsieur Manteau hadn’t been there. The coatrack pushed Gaston upright again – not as gently as Gaston would’ve wanted, but at least he wasn’t on the ground right now. 

 

“Thank you,” Gaston gritted out before putting a foot forward a little. It could barely be called a step, but he didn’t black-out again. That encouraged him to keep shuffling forward until he thoroughly exhausted, but very triumphantly pressed his hands against the window sill. The glass was cool against his warm, sickly skin and before he could stop himself he pressed his cheek against it with a satisfied hum.

 

Monsieur Manteau let go of him after a praising tap on Gaston’s shoulder and he walked back into the room, where he waited. Gaston stared at him until the coatrack gestured to him in a way that appeared to mean ‘come here’. Gaston rolled his eyes at him, trying to suppress the fear bubbling inside of him that he would collapse if he had to walk on his own without help. He tried to save some time by glancing out the window and took in the courtyard of the castle for the first time since he got here.

 

The snow that would’ve eventually taken his life even without help of the wolves was as white and undisturbed as always. Its cold beauty couldn’t fool Gaston anymore – he now knew what a silent killer it could be. Like an enemy soldier crawling towards you in the dark and who could suddenly be right next to you before you even saw anything move. Luckily he never saw one eye to eye, as that would’ve meant certain death. But he had heard the startled screams more than once, after which the air would light up in gunfire from both sides until the darkness of the night returned, bloodier and heavier than before. 

 

Gaston blinked the images away as swiftly as he breathed and let his eyes roam over the frozen lakes and trees. How beautiful it would all look during spring, when the blossoms would brighten up the trees in all kinds of colours. It was a nice image. Far nicer than the ones of blood and pain that kept him hostage more often than ever lately. He knew that he should probably return to bed before he caught a terrible cold again, seeing he was naked except for the bandages. Perhaps he could ask the coatrack for a robe of some sorts. Wait, no. Bad idea. He didn’t want to wear anything of that Beast, even though it was strange to imagine him wearing something as _human_ as a bathrobe. 

 

However, all thoughts of spring and bathrobes disappeared when he saw a moving figure in the snow. 

 

Pressing his face against the window, he tried to see what the Beast was doing. He was walking – no, _striding_ through the snow as if it didn’t bother him at all. Even from this height Gaston could see the massive paw prints the Beast was leaving behind in a curving trail that came from somewhere out of Gaston’s sight.

 

Gaston did most definitely _not_ jump when a wooden hook tapped his shoulder, but instead he tore his gaze from the Beast outside and looked at Monsieur Manteau. The latter was tapping one of his four wooden foots on the floor and grabbed him at his arm, tugging him back to the bed. 

 

The adrenaline gave him enough energy to make it back to the bed without wobbling too much, and he let himself be tucked back with an almost content sigh. His eyelids were drooping shut and Gaston had to fight to stay awake long enough to see Monsieur Monteau make a flourish, ridiculous bow at him before leaving the room as quickly and silently as he had came.

 

Gaston’s last thought before he drifted away in an uneasy sleep was the Beast and what exactly he was up to all day and night.

\--  
\---  
\--

Being able to sit up now and even walk a few steps without fainting, Gaston could at least use his chamberpot without any embarrassing help. Eating and drinking also improved and soon he could finally eat and keep in a stronger meal than porridge. Even though he asked for raw eggs every single day, the servants pretended they didn’t fully understand him and instead presented him with eggs prepared in all kinds of ways imaginable _except_ the way he wanted them. Still, even Gaston understood that if it weren’t for those same servants, he would probably be eating old bread in a cold cell. And so he stopped complaining after six full days and ate whatever they put in front of him.

 

His wounds were healing at an agonizingly slow pace and it frustrated him to no end. The walls were closing in to him and he felt himself growing dangerously bored. He had nothing to do – he couldn’t read very well and hated reading in general, so that wasn’t an option. His favourite pastime was hunting, but in this state he wasn’t even able to hold a pistol properly without shaking.

 

And so, more often than not, he found himself simply staring up at the ceiling, tapping his fingers against the blankets in varying rhythms with a blank look on his face. When he lay there for too long and the bad memories threatened to take over, he would carefully sit up and wrap himself in a blanket before shuffling over to the window. There he could sit on the windowsill and look outside, although there wasn’t much too see. Gaston had even began to hope he would see the Beast again, down there at a safe distance. _Just_ to have something to direct his attention to. Something to distract him, to turn his irritation and frustration to in a smoking ball of rage.

 

But the Beast did not make an appearance again. At least not during the moments Gaston sat at the window, at least. 

 

Gaston’s hands were shaking with the pent up energy and he was itching to just _do_ something. Anything at all. And if that meant risking angering the Beast again, it still felt like a better alternative than turning mad with boredom in here.

 

About a week ago, Gaston paid enough attention to discover they didn’t lock his room anymore. Perhaps they’d never done it to begin with, despite their Master’s clear preferences. Then again, he knew they had defied the Beast multiple times before for Gaston’s sake.  
And so the door of his bed chamber opened without problem when he slowly pushed the handle down. The hallway was empty, but still he waited a few seconds to make sure the shadows wouldn’t move. They didn’t. 

 

Gaston wrapped the blanket tighter around himself and cringed when the squeak of wheels pierced through the silence. After a few seconds though he realised that the sound wasn’t as loud as he thought it was. And that was a good thing – otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to leave the room at all. 

 

The cart on which they brought his food proved a perfect tool to move himself around. He leaned heavily over it and gripped the sides for support as he slowly pushed his way out of the door. After clumsily pulling the door shut behind him with his maimed hand, he took off down the hallway. 

 

Glancing up on the walls, he saw dark square patches that were once covered by paintings or mirrors. They had all been taken down a long time ago, judging by the layer of dust. Every time Gaston passed a window he glanced outside, longing to see different sights than he was used to. 

 

And he got rewarded. Each window showed the same white layer of snow that lay on the ground, but now Gaston could see that the lands of the Beast stretched far further than he had previously imagined. Before he saw the huge castle doom up before him that fateful day of the wolves’ attack, he had never thought that something so expansive could exist in the woods he was so accustomed to. And yet here it was – an enormous castle full of black magic and monsters. How could no one have ever come across it? Or was it yet another spell that lay upon the castle? But then why was he able to find it when no one else had before?

 

His head began to ache painfully with all the questions he had no answer to. It was here, far beyond the edge of anything reasonable, that Gaston finally began to realise how little he actually understood. It had never bothered him before, but now the doubts and fears ate away at him. He had accepted his fragile state of mind as a product of being so close to magic and he was almost certain he would return to his normal self as soon as he got out of here. However, seeing that he needed the support of a cart to walk longer than a few steps was proof enough that he couldn’t leave just yet.

 

And deep down he didn’t want to. Not yet, at least. It was true that he looked forward to returning to the dumb, but loving villagers who would be overjoyed to see him safe and well. Their war hero. The one who had protected the village against the raiding Portuguese when he was just a lad of sixteen. Oh, how proud his father had finally been of him. And Belle! Surely she would finally be swayed by the relieve of seeing him alive again after worrying and despairing for weeks. He would propose again – right then and there, and she would say yes this time. He had played this scenario out in his head dozens of times the past few days. 

 

For now, though, he wanted to be here. Just long enough to find his gun. It was a promise he had made to himself – he would not leave this castle without killing the Beast if he could help it. Any weapon would be suitable, really, for his task to find and fight the monster. Preferably in that order, but with the temper of the Beast Gaston couldn’t be sure when the next encounter would come. 

 

In fact, he thought as he quickly looked left and right at the end of the hallway, the Beast could be anywhere right now. He might be all the way up in the highest tower or down in the deepest dungeon, or –

 

With a whirl he turned around, heart racing. Nothing. The hallway was as empty as it had been before. 

 

Gnashing his teeth at his own cowardice, he ignored the aches and pains and let the cart bring him to a big space that led to all kinds of stairs going in several directions. This room seemed to be the heart of the castle where all the hallways and stairs began. The only way he could go with the cart was the hallway opposite to him, so his options were limited. 

 

On top of that, his forehead was shiny with sweat and he was breathing as if he had just run a far distance instead of walked. As much as he wanted to keep moving, it seemed to be a better idea to rest a little first. Gaston slowly lowered himself to the floor and wrapped the blanket tightly around him. 

 

He could probably stay here for hours and still notice new details around him. The room was massive and richly decorated, although a dark atmosphere lay over it all. It was a sense of sorrow that Gaston could feel everywhere he went. Just how long had the Beast’s terror reigned here? And what was the purpose of hiding in a castle with enchanted servants as the only company? What did the Beast _want_?

 

Gaston turned his head and pressed his head against the cool stone of the wall. His fingernail scratched against the worn carpet on the floor and he pulled absentmindedly on a loose thread. As with all the things here, it was clear that the carpet had once been very beautiful to look at. Now, it was but a shadow of its former self. Yes, that was the right word for it. Everything around Gaston – even himself – was reduced to a mere shadow form of its original self. Was it the Beast’s doing or something else entirely?

 

Too many questions. He hated those. During the short period that he actually went to school as a child he just couldn’t stand not knowing anything when everyone else around him was so smart. His father pulled him out of school after just a few days, saying that Gaston should learn to be a man instead of – there was the hateful word – an _intellectual_. And of course his father had been right, as he always was. Father’s word was Gaston’s truth and that was the way it had always been. 

 

Gaston glanced up and his gaze was immediately drawn to one staircase in particular. It seemed to lead to a different wing of the castle, but there was something off about it. He couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but it felt as if an invisible magnet was drawing him towards it. Something was up there – he was certain of it.

 

Gaston grabbed the cart and got on his feet again with a groan. His eyes did not sway from the stairs, but a sound in the hallway opposite of him drew his attention away at last. 

 

At first he was afraid it was the Beast, but then he heard voices that could only belong to children and he wondered what they were doing.

 

He slowly walked away from the big room, not quite daring to look up at the one that was calling him. It had to be some sort of magic, but if he could help it he wouldn’t go there. Not that he was even able to like this. So many steps – he would never make it even if he crawled.

 

And yet. And yet… What was up there?

 

The voices grew louder the closer Gaston came, and eventually he rounded a corner and saw a door standing wide open. A warm glow of light spilled into the hallway and he could already feel the comfort of the blazing fire before he stepped into the room. 

 

It appeared to be a sitting room of sorts with all kinds of couches and chairs arranged across the room. On the wide wall was a broad fire that lit up the whole room and his freezing self was immediately drawn to it. 

 

He abandoned the cart after a few steps and walked tentatively on his own to the carpet in front of the fire where he found the children.

 

Well, children. They were all teacups with various patterns and colours on them. Among them he recognized Chip, Mrs Potts’ boy. They hushed immediately when Gaston’s shadow fell over them, but they hopped excitedly when they saw it was him.

 

“Wow! It’s a man!”

 

“He looks funny!”

 

“ _You_ look funny, Jacque.”

 

They burst into laughter, even the one named Jacque. Gaston couldn’t help but smile with them, even though the hairs on his arms were raised. Perhaps he would never really get used to being around magic. 

 

Gaston slowly sat down on the carpet, his legs shaking. He pretended he didn’t see them stare as he carefully wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. The fire was pleasant and was steadily warming him up.

 

“What are you doing?” Gaston eventually asked when he couldn’t ignore them anymore. He glanced down at the ground, where all kinds of marbles were placed in groups. 

 

“Soldiers!” Chip piped up and hopped towards Gaston excitedly. “We all have an army – the red ones are mine – and we fight each other. The winner gets to make the others do whatever he or she wants to!”

 

“Ah.” Gaston stared at the fire. “Sounds like a fun game.” 

 

“You want to play along?” 

 

Gaston shook his head. “You play. I’ll watch.” 

 

It was a pretty brutal game. It had complicated rules that Gaston was still figuring out after a few rounds – or ‘battles’ as they had called them. As far as he could understand, whenever an enemy marble hit your own marble it was dead and had to leave the game. Bile rose in his throat whenever it happened, for the children would shout for medical assistance in high pitched voices. Despite the heat of the fire, he grew cold when he realised they were in fact pretending they were the dying soldier. And always – no matter how hard the enemy hit them – the soldiers would always die. 

 

How could a game be so cruel and accurate at the same time? 

 

Thankfully, the game was soon done and the children were discussing what to play next. The boy who had called Gaston funny, Jacque, was the big winner and was loudly proclaiming that they should play another game called: ‘protecting my castle’, and that was when Gaston interfered.

 

“How about,” he began and they all looked up at him, even Jacque, “we do something different. You see that yellow square there?” 

 

Everyone turned around to look at the spot on the carpet he was talking about. 

 

“We all take a place at the edges of the carpet so we’re all equally as far from the square. Then, we each roll a marble in turn and try to get it in the square. If you succeed, you get a point. However,” he began saying with a sigh and smiled despite himself at the intakes of breath, “if someone else’s marble hits yours and pushes it out of the square, you lose that point. We’ll each have five marbles and thus also five rounds. The one with the most points at the end is the winner.”

 

Gaston sat back in satisfaction and looked at their excited faces. He used to play this game all the time as a child. It was strange to imagine that there were children who didn’t know of it, but at least they did now. 

 

The feeling of restlessness was completely gone now for the time being. Even though they were children, he felt completely at ease around them. The soldiers game was something that chilled him, but they didn’t know any better. Was it the Beast who corrupted their minds with violent games? 

 

A nudge at his knee made him glance down, and it was Chip who looked back up at him with a grin. 

 

“Here are your marbles. You have sea green! I have red, Jacque blue, Maríe yellow, Jean light blue and Camille white.” 

 

Chip dumped the marbles in front of him and Gaston clumsily reached out to keep them from rolling away. The bandages around his hands were gone now and he was painfully aware of his missing ring finger. His left hand was worse however with the thumb missing, and he had to struggle to keep his blanket around him with that hand. 

 

Time to pity himself he didn’t have, because soon the game began and his competitiveness kicked in fiercely.

 

Although there were no ‘soldiers’ dying this time, Gaston almost dared to say that this game had more at stake. The children loved it and jumped happily whenever their marble got into the square. When someone else kicked their marble out of it, however, they got angry for a few seconds before laughing and trying again. It was surprising to see – Gaston and the village boys he usually played this game with always ended up hitting and biting each other whenever they got at the losing end. None of them could handle losing but these children – they were cursed, but they still were very much children – they didn’t mind at all. They knew it was but a game and that even though they lost this time they could just as well win the next time.

 

Gaston laughed when Maríe hit his marble head on and it still managed to stay into the square. He held his hand up so Chip could jump into it as some sort of high-five when Gaston’s marble kicked one of Jacque’s out so Chip became the winner. He hid his face behind his hand to hide the grin from Camille when two of her marbles were pushed out at once and she could do nothing but gape.

 

Gaston played this game from his youth for what felt like hours and he felt more alive than he had in ages.

 

Eventually though his stomach grumbled and a glance at the window told him that it was already dark outside. The children protested initially when he announced it was time to wrap it up, but they quickly recovered when he promised them to play again tomorrow. He asked Chip if he could get some food up here, and the child nodded happily.

 

“Of course. Bye, Monsieur!” Chip bowed as much as his porcelain body could and Gaston nodded back with a smile. Chip hopped towards the door, but then stopped to look at the back of the room.

 

“Bye Master!” 

 

Gaston’s smile disappeared as quick as ice in the sun. His shoulders hunched up and the hairs on the back of his neck rose when he heard the respond coming from all the way behind him.

 

“Night, Chip,” grumbled the Beast and Gaston could hear his heavy footsteps approaching. They were somewhat muffled by the carpets but still chillingly audible in the now quiet room. 

 

Gaston saw the shadow before the Beast himself. It was huge and Gaston could see the shape of the horns, twisted and crooked on top of a massive head. And then the Beast appeared in his vision and stepped around him to sit in one of the big chairs by the fire. Gaston sat at the other end of the fire at a distance from him, but still too close for his liking. Involuntarily he pulled the blanket tighter around himself, even though the fire was so hot it made him sweat. His eyes did not dare meet the Beast’s, afraid to find rage and coldness in them. Yet, Gaston could not help but speak.

 

“How long have been here?”

 

The Beast snorted softly, but he didn’t get angry. Gaston dared a quick glance up and away again, but couldn’t see anything that could tell him what the Beast was thinking.

 

“Long before you made your… interesting appearance,” The Beast’s voice was soft, almost absentmindedly. Gaston glanced up again and saw that the Beast was looking in the fire. And so he did as well, to give himself something to do while his thoughts were racing inside of his head. 

 

“Why- What were you doing? Why didn’t you show yourself?” Gaston demanded with more courage than he felt. However, he was steadily feeling more confident when he realised the Beast did not seem to be on the verge of lashing out at him again. He was in fact the complete opposite than the other two times he had met him. The cold focus in the Beast’s eyes was gone – as was the contempt in his voice. 

 

“I still do not have to explain myself to you, man.” The Beast actually _smiled_ a little and it was so unlike what he had seen of the monster before that Gaston blinked in surprise. The tension in his body left him somewhat, although he still expected the Beast’s mood to turn at any second now.

 

It was quiet again for a while. They both looked at the fire but their attention was on each other. Gaston did not know what to say or do, and so he did nothing. He was full of questions but he didn’t dare ask them. Not yet.

 

“You taught the children a nice game.” Gaston’s head whipped around to look at the Beast. He almost looked hesitant. _Uncertain_. “They don’t have a lot to do around here. I haven’t seen them this happy in a very long time.” 

 

Gaston was speechless. Literally. The only sound that came from his mouth was an incomprehensible grumble, but the Beast didn’t seem to notice. Gaston should feel angry. After the way the Beast had treated him he was suddenly nice-talking him? And yet, the anger didn’t come. He only felt a dull confusion and despite himself curiosity.

 

Gaston suddenly realised that the Beast expected an answer from him, and his mouth worked a couple of times before he found the words.

 

“It’s nothing,” he eventually said slowly. His eyes shot up to the Beast’s and he managed not to flinch when he saw the blue eyes looking right back at him. 

 

“And yet it _is_ something.” The Beast leaned forward in his seat. “I… misjudged you. I thought you were just like the rest of them.” The Beast glanced away sharply and Gaston was happy the rage inside his eyes was not directed at Gaston. Still, Gaston was not the smartest man that had ever lived and could not help but poke at the figurative bear.

 

“’Misjudged’ is quite the understatement, don’t you think?” Gaston tried to keep his voice steady, but it still trembled slightly. He couldn’t trust himself to do anything right anymore, it seemed. He wanted to say more - _way_ more – but he couldn’t.

 

The Beast grumbled softly and leaned back in his seat again. His long nails tapped against the armrest in a complicated pattern that made Gaston’s head spin and he glanced away. The lack of food combined with his exhaustion made him nauseous. 

 

“I apologize.” 

 

The words hung between them in the large room. Gaston could only stare.

 

“I apologize for all of it,” the Beast continued softly. He tried to meet Gaston’s gaze, but the latter had quickly glanced away towards the safety of the fire. His heartbeat had sped up uncomfortably and he had no clue how to react to the thing he had expected _the least_ to come from the Beast’s mouth. He especially did not expect the Beast to be sincere when he said those words.

 

“My behaviour was inexcusable, even though you _did_ trespass on my lands,” the Beast added with a raised eyebrow. “But I recognize now that you obviously did not ask for the wolves to attack you like they did, as you told me before.”

 

Gaston gnashed his teeth. He only did that when he was angry or really nervous. He did not know which of the two he felt right now, though. The whole situation felt unreal to him. As if he would soon wake up to see the same old ceiling again in his bedroom in the other end of the castle.

 

How was he supposed to react to this? Did the Beast truly think an apology was enough to make up for what he had done? And yet. It was _something_. More than he had expected, that was for sure. Gaston could handle the idea of the Beast being a monster because that was how he looked. But the Beast as something softer, more human? 

 

The Beast had been looking at him closely, but when he saw Gaston wasn’t going to respond anytime soon he looked away again. 

 

Thankfully, the welcome sound of squeaking wheels came towards them and soon Mrs Potts arrived on a cart full with plates of food. Gaston saw that the plates were for two and his heart sank. 

 

Still, the hunger won it over the uneasiness and Gaston carefully untangled himself enough from his blanket to grab his plate. He pointedly ignored the Beast as he ate the food with his bare hands, but from the corner of his eye he saw the Beast eating in the same way.

 

Mrs Potts glanced between the two of them and then smiled as if the scene somehow endeared her. Gaston ignored her too.

 

When the plates were clean, they both got a cup of wine. It was the first time Gaston had gotten alcohol from them and even though it wasn’t beer, he took a thankful gulp. The taste was bitter, but after another sip he already began to like it more. It helped to put his mind at ease a little.

 

“Do not stay up too late, dear,” Mrs Potts said softly to Gaston as she prepared to leave with the empty plates back to the kitchen. “You still very much need your rest.”

 

Gaston promised her he wouldn’t. She left.

 

The silence between them didn’t feel so heavy anymore with the wine. Gaston’s headache slowly faded away, although he knew it would return in tenfold when he would wake up the next day. He curled up in his chair, feeling tired. The Beast was looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face.

 

Perhaps it was the wine that made him speak, or maybe Gaston remembered the promise he had made to himself. The promise that involved a gun to the Beast’s head at Gaston’s earliest convenience. That would make him return home a bigger hero than he already was. A legend. 

 

“I accept your apology, Beast.” 

 

The words came out drowsily but clear enough, and he let his eyelids drop shut. The empty cup in his hand fell on the carpet and rolled away. Perhaps it would stop right on the square, Gaston thought with a smile as he allowed himself to be taken back to the world of soldiers that were made of flesh instead of marbles.


End file.
